Refrigeration systems for hospitality usage, catering and food service usage are known in the art. One such use is a salad bar. Often salad lettuce and related items are stored in walk in refrigeration systems for a period of time to maintain freshness. During business hours when customers desire salad, the food service personnel or providers will load the salad into a refrigeration assembly for selective access by the customers. In one type of salad bar arrangement, shallow pans are placed in a number of notches or apertures of a cabinet or service counter. Containers are placed in the notches. Then, at the appropriate time, the salad is placed in the chilled containers. The refrigeration assembly will have a cooling device therein. The cooling device will cool the containers and the food contents of the containers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,247,807 to Jarman and U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,419 to Brando et al. disclose such refrigeration assemblies. Jarman discloses a container in a chamber that has refrigerated coils. The coils surround virtually the entire surface of the container. However, this system is defective in its operation, as the refrigerated coils will cool the contents in a non-uniform manner. Although, the refrigerated coils will cool a top most portion of the container a suitable amount, the refrigeration coils often cool a bottom most portion of the container an excessive amount. This excessive cooling is detrimental to the freshness and the overall taste of the food.
Brando discloses an assembly that has a chamber. The chamber is filled with a gel. The gel keeps a pan cool for an extended period of time. However, like the previous discussed reference, due to an amount of heat transfer to ambient at a top most portion of the pan where the pan is open, the cooling device often cools a bottom most portion of the container an excessive amount relative to the top most portion. This excessive cooling thus creates a non-uniform cooling of the pan. This non-uniformity is detrimental, adverse to the taste of the food, and conducive to spoilage, as the food will be cooled excessively in one location and not enough in a second location. Accordingly, there is a need for a refrigeration assembly that is capable of a substantially uniform cooling of the food in the pan.
There is a further need for a refrigeration assembly that has a pan that can store food therein at a uniform temperature throughout the pan.
There is a need for such a refrigeration assembly that has a pan that has an upper portion and a lower portion with a number of refrigeration coils that contact the upper portion.
There is a need for a refrigeration assembly that has a pan that is made from a thermally conductive material with a gel that selectively surrounds the thermally conductive material for maximum cooling in certain preselected areas of the pan.
There is a need for such a refrigeration assembly that can be easily installed in a food serving counter.
There is a need for such a refrigeration assembly that has an insulating member that selectively covers a portion of a pan for minimum cooling in a certain preselected area of the pan.